The Axman of New Orleans

by Chuck Hustmyre

  "I agree," Emile said. "Which is why I'm sure the letter is a fake."

  "Who do you think sent it?"

  "You'd be surprised how many letters newspapers get from people confessing to all sorts of things."

  "So you think it's a prank?" Colin asked.

  "I didn't say that."

  "You said it was fake."

  "It is," Emile said. "But I don't believe it was meant as a prank."

  "What then?"

  Emile took another sip of coffee. "The killer certainly did not write the letter." He paused, unsure exactly how to proceed, then said, "I think the people who are protecting him wrote it."

  Just then the waiter arrived with their brunch, another pot of coffee, and an ice bucket holding a bottle of Champagne. The waiter opened the bottle and poured them each a glass. Then he left them alone.

  Colin stared across the table, his blue eyes boring into Emile's. "Who would protect a man who murders women and children?"

  Emile hesitated. His friend had been away for more than a year. A lot had happened. Colin knew nothing of Emile's theory about the Axman. It was a lot to take in, and Colin was stubborn. The best way, Emile knew, was to jump right in. So he downed a gulp of Champagne, looked around to make sure no was close enough to hear, then leaned across the small table and said in a half-whisper, "Members of the Ring, along with certain police officials, know who the killer is and are protecting him."

  Colin started coughing and yanked a handkerchief from his pocket. After the fit subsided, he wiped his mouth but folded his handkerchief quickly. Emile couldn't see it, but he suspected there was blood on it. The war had really done his friend some damage. "Are you all right?" Emile asked.

  Colin nodded and took a tentative sip Champagne. "I'm fine," he said. "But I'm worried about you. You're off your rocker."

  Emile raised his hand. "Before you have me committed, just hear me out."

  Colin nodded and cut into his steak. Emile forked one of the baked oysters into his mouth. As they ate, Emile gave Colin a quick outline of his theory about the Axman, making the same points he had made with his former editor, Gene Langenstein.

  When he finished his explanation, Emile was surprised to discover that Colin did not dismiss it out of hand. Instead, he seemed to be mulling it over.

  "It makes sense," Colin said. "From a certain perspective. The problem is that it doesn't answer the most basic question."

  "The question of why," Emile said. "Why would Dominick O'Malley and Frank Thompson be involved in something so heinous?"

  Colin nodded as he took a bite of scrambled eggs.

  Emile used his fork to cut a piece from his croissant and plopped it into his mouth. He loved Sunday brunch at the Grunewald. "I don't know the answer. Not yet. But I know this, you don't cover something up unless you know the truth can hurt you."

  "It's extreme even for Carlo Matranga," Colin said. "He's been sending Black Hand letters longer than I've been alive, but extortion schemes are based on threats and intimidation, not murder. Dead men don't pay."

  "It's bigger than a simple extortion racket," Emile said. "The night Obitz was killed, Dantonio told me that whatever this new scheme is, it's too big for Matranga alone. There are other people, the implication was more powerful people, involved."

  "Involved in what?"

  "Let's ask the Axman Tuesday night," Emile said. "After we catch him."

  Colin was taking another sip of Champagne and laughed so hard some of it ran out of his nose. He picked up a napkin and dabbed his face. The sight made Emile laugh too.

  After he regained his composure, Colin said, "We're going to catch the Axman-you and me-Tuesday night?"

  "Exactly," Emile said.

  "How exactly?"

  "According to the letter, he's going to strike at 12:15."

  "You said the letter is a fake."

  "It is, but Superintendent Thompson wants everyone to believe the Axman is a lunatic, right?"

  Colin nodded. "So you say."

  "Then what better way to prove that the killer is mad than by having him announce the precise time of his next murder, and then have him actually go out and do it? Who else but a madman would do such a thing?"

  "So you think he's going to kill someone Tuesday night?"

  "I would bet money on it," Emile said.

  "I know that. The question is, how much would you bet?"

  Emile shrugged. "Enough to make it interesting."

  Colin took a sip of coffee and chased it with a swallow of Champagne. He picked up his napkin and dabbed his lips, then carefully folded the napkin and laid it on the table. The tension was stretching Emile's nerves taught. His plan wouldn't work without Colin. The Axman was a killer. Emile wasn't. Colin could handle himself well and would protect them both. And he could actually arrest the Axman if they managed to catch him.

  Colin stared across the table for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, he said. "I'm in."

  Emile smiled.

  CHAPTER 39

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1919

  6:05 P.M.

  Emile was back at the Red Stag, perched on a barstool with a half-empty glass of absinthe in front of him. I slid onto the stool next to him. "I need a favor," I said.

  "I would love to help you," he said. "But I am presently engaged."

  "Doing what?"

  "Protesting."

  "Protesting what?"

  Emile raised the fragile bell-shaped glass that absinthe is traditionally served in and offered a silent toast to the chalkboard nailed to the wall behind the bar on which the bartenders kept a count of the number of days until January 17, 1920, the day Prohibition would take effect. Scrawled on the chalkboard today was the number seventy-nine. "I'm protesting the Eighteenth Amendment," Emile said. Then he downed the rest of the dirty green liquid in one gulp.

  Watching him drink it made my stomach lurch. I had overindulged on absinthe once, a mistake I vowed never to repeat. I nodded at the barkeep. "Old Dublin, please."

  He poured a healthy shot into a glass and set it in front of me. I handed him a quarter.

  Emile passed the barman his empty glass. "And another one for me too, s'il vous plait."

  "You're protesting the new law by drinking something that's already illegal?" I asked.

  "I thought that as a policeman you would appreciate the irony."

  Absinthe, also known as the green fairy, was a favorite of the literary crowd, but it had been banned since 1912 because of its supposed addictive and psychosis-inducing properties. Although, in New Orleans the powerful French spirit wasn't hard to find, and its continued popularity, which had only increased since the ban, was, I felt certain, due in large part to the curious ritual of its preparation and its high potency, rather than to its actual taste, which, to my tongue, at least, was like black licorice.

  Emile watched, nearly transfixed, as the barkeep set a fresh glass in front of him and laid a specially designed silver spoon across the top of the glass. The blade of the spoon was a flat triangle with slots cut into it.

  The bartender placed a cube of sugar on top of the slotted spoon, then poured two ounces of the clear green liquor over the sugar and let it run down into the glass. He struck a match and set the alcohol-soaked lump of sugar on fire; then, after letting the sugar burn for thirty seconds, he doused the flame by dribbling water on it from an iced carafe. The chilled water cascaded down into the glass and mixed with the absinthe, turning it from a translucent emerald to a cloudy, almost milky green. Then he tilted the spoon and dumped the scorched sugar cube into the drink.

  Emile slid thirty-five cents across the bar and picked up the glass. He stared into it, swirling the opaque green concoction, which seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect on him. Then, without looking away, he asked me, "Why would two-thirds of the United States Congress think that alcohol is so dangerous that the only way to regulate its consumption is to make it illegal?"

  I took a sip of whiskey. "Aren't you the one w
ho told me there would still be plenty of booze; it was just going to cost more?"

  "I'm concerned that I may have been too optimistic. Have you heard about the new Bureau of Prohibition?"

  "Yes," I said. "And I also heard that Carlo Matranga is going to open a network of speakeasies. The drinks are going to cost seventy-five cents, and that's just for the homemade hooch. The good stuff is going to cost a buck and a quarter."

  Emile groaned. "Mon ami, what are we going to do?"

  "Drink up," I said, "and be thankful it's only October." We touched glasses and each took a swallow.

  "I was serious about needing that favor," I said.

  "Anything for you, my friend."

  "I need you to write an article about the Axman."

  Emile's face hardened. "Anything except that."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't write about the Axman anymore."

  "I went to see Thompson this morning," I said. "At home."

  "You went to his house?"

  I nodded.

  "Mon Dieu, why?"

  "To tell him I think the Axman is a policeman."

  Emile stared at me in shock.

  "I found a button at the Pepitone house," I explained. "A button from a police raincoat. I think it belonged to the killer."

  "You told Thompson that and you still have a job?"

  "For now," I said. "But I need you to write an article about the case."

  He looked down into his glass. "I'm sorry but I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "You know why."

  "Tell me."

  He turned to look at me, real anger on his face. "Because I'm a coward." He said it loud, too loud. And several people gave him look. When he spoke again, his voice was lower but still filled with emotion. "There, I said it. Does that make you happy?"

  "You're not a coward," I said. "Not even close."

  "That's easy for you to say. You're a hero. A double hero, who fought criminals and Germans."

  "No one is brave all the time," I said. "Everybody advances, everybody falls back. The brave just advance more than they fall back."

  "And cowards fall back more than they advance."

  "When I was in the hospital in France," I said, "I met this American colonel. He had been leading a charge on a kraut machine-gun nest and got shot through the thigh. It was pretty bad. He almost bled to death. We were in a field hospital and there was no separate ward for officers, so they put him in the bed next to mine. He was there for a couple of weeks. We talked a lot. Well, mostly he talked. I listened. I couldn't talk much anyway because of my lungs. It was hard enough just to breath.

  "This colonel, he was tough. One day they brought a German officer in. Normally, they took wounded krauts to a prison hospital, but for some reason they put him in with us and assigned two MPs to guard him. Turns out he was a also colonel, and some kind of Prussian aristocrat. He even spoke English. Well when he found out he was in the same hospital with enlisted men he went nuts. The American colonel, Patton was his name, he told the kraut to shut up. The kraut got offended and told Colonel Patton that if he wanted to wallow with swine that was his business, but he wasn't going to put up with it. At which point Colonel Patton crawled out of his bunk, stood on one leg, and challenged the kraut to a duel, right then, right there, sabers or pistols, Colonel Patton would let him choose. After that the kraut shut up, and the next day they transferred him to a prison hospital."

  "Are you suggesting that I challenge someone to a duel?" Emile asked. "If so, I hope you're talking about my editor and not the Axman."

  "No," I said. "What I'm trying to tell you is, as brave and tough as that American colonel was, all he wanted to do was rest and get healed up, so he could go back out and fight again."

  "What happened to him?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. The war ended a few weeks later, and I didn't see him again. I'll never forget him, though, Colonel George Patton."

  Emile drained the rest of his drink and set the spindly glass down. "What would you want this article to say?"

  I turned on my stool to face him and propped my elbow on the bar. Then I told him wanted him to write.

  When I finished, Emile said, "They are going to come after you."

  "That's what I'm counting on."

  "You could end up like John Dantonio," Emile said. "Or worse, like Teddy Obitz."

  "That colonel I told you about ... Patton."

  "What about him?" Emile asked.

  "He said you cannot win a battle by fighting defensively. That the only way to win was to seize the initiative and go on the offensive."

  "I hope he was right."

  "You know what happens when a house catches fire?" I said.

  Emile shrugged. "If you're lucky, somebody calls the Fire Department, and if you're really lucky some of the firemen are sober."

  I couldn't help but laugh. "That's true. But that was not the point I was trying to make. What I meant was, when a house catches fire, the rats run out into the open."

  "The rats you're talking about have badges and guns."

  "I know. But it's not the whole department. Just a few bad apples. Thompson for sure. Captain Campo. Maybe McMurphy, the chief of patrol."

  "If I do this," Emile said, "I want an exclusive, everything you know about the Axman. And no waiting. I want to know as soon as you know."

  I smiled. "I thought you were through with the Axman."

  "My father spent his life trying to expose the corrupt men who run this city. And it killed him. Now it's up to me to finish what he started." Emile reached into his pocket and pulled out the liberty head half-dollar I had carried during the war. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

  "Are you afraid you're about to do something stupid?"

  He shook his head. "Just a little gris-gris to remind myself that I almost did something stupid."

  "Quit, you mean?"

  He nodded.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. "There was never any danger of that."

  Emile shoved the half-dollar back into his pocket. Then he pulled his watch from his waistcoat. "I assume you think this article of yours should go in tomorrow's edition."

  "That's what I was hoping."

  "I'd better start writing then."

  "Are you going to have any trouble with your editor?"

  "I don't see why I should," Emile said. "You are the lead detective on the Axman case. My article will be based on what you told me. Besides, if you can't trust a policeman ..." He laughed. "Who can you trust?"

  ***

  When I got home half an hour later, the tawny mutt was asleep on my porch. He didn't wake up until I was standing beside him. Then he just looked up at me and licked my hand when I held out to him. "Some guard dog you are," I said and scratched behind his floppy ears.

  I unlocked my front door and stepped inside. An envelope lay on the floor. Someone had shoved it under my door while I was out. I snapped my fingers at the dog and motioned him inside. He looked up at me, seeming to question whether he had understood my meaning. "You're obviously useless in any other capacity," I told him. "Maybe if I let you sleep inside, you can catch mice." Then the prospect of a warm, dry house overcame his hesitation, and he padded into the den.

  I bent down and picked up the envelope. As I closed the door behind me, I switched on the overhead light. The envelope was sealed, but there were no markings. I tore it open.

  Inside was a folded sheet of notepaper and five one-hundred-dollar bills. Almost half my yearly salary. I unfolded the note. There was no salutation or signature. Just a one-sentence message, printed in block letters with a pen.

  THE AXMAN IS A BLOOD-THIRSTY MANIAC.

  CHAPTER 40

  JAZZ BANDS BLARE FOR AXMAN

  City Takes Seriously The Threat Of Mysterious Letter Writer Who Claimed To Be Murderer.

  -The City News

  MARCH 18, 1919

  11:30 P.M.

  The Ford Model T convertible belch
ed black smoke and spit sparks from its exhaust pipe as the right front wheel dropped into a rut at the edge of the street. Emile Denoux jerked the steering wheel hard left and managed to drag the motorcar back onto the pavement without popping the tire.

  "How much gasoline do we have left?" Colin asked from the passenger seat.

  Emile glanced around but saw nothing that indicated the fuel level. "I have no idea."

  Colin slumped lower in his seat. "I guess we'll find out when the motor stops."

  Emile pulled back on the hand throttle and leaned forward to peer over the hood. A thick fog had rolled in off the river a couple of hours ago and cut visibility to fifty feet. They were bouncing down a bad stretch of North Rampart Street, and Emile was worried he was going to crash his new editor's motorcar.

  "How long are we going to drive around?" Colin said, his hat pulled down low on his forehead.

  Emile braked to a halt in the middle of the deserted street and checked his watch. "Another hour at least. Let's call again at midnight to see if anything has happened."

  "I think the desk sergeant is getting tired of me calling every hour."

  "You've only called him twice," Emile said.

  Colin raised his hat and glanced at Emile. "You don't understand desk sergeants. Twice is two times too many."

  Emile ground the Model T's gearbox until he found first gear. Then he eased the automobile forward. A thin layer of mist coated the windscreen. Emile reached up and cranked the handle for the wiper. The rubberized blade cleared a foot-wide arc on the glass.

  "When did you tell your boss you were bringing his motorcar back?" Colin asked.

  "I was a little vague."

  "When he lent it to you, did he know you were going to spend all night driving from one Italian grocery to the next trying to catch the Axman?"

  "I was a little vague on those details as well," Emile said. The truth was he had outright lied to his new editor, Raymond Schwartz, about the reason he wanted to borrow his motorcar. Emile said his wife, Colette, had never been in an automobile before, and he wanted to take her for a drive.

  "Turn left on Esplanade," Colin said. "There's a place on the corner of North Villere we haven't checked yet."